Every summer the Intensive German Language Courses, organized by the Language Centre at the University of Innsbruck, take place in July and August. Also this year, four students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem came to Innsbruck to learn and improve their German language skills. With lessons in the morning and all sorts of different activities in the afternoon, the 3-week course is a great opportunity to learn and practice German and get to know the people and culture of Tyrol.

The students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem received a scholarship from the University of Innsbruck that covered the course fees as well as the accommodation costs.

AIANI organized a special visit to the Jewish Community for Tyrol and Vorarlberg for the students, where the honorary president Dr. Esther Fritsch gave a tour for the group and told them about the history of the community and the synagogue in Innsbruck. Afterwards, the group met for a little get-together with students from the University of Innsbruck.On another day they visited the exhibition “Architecture Speaks: The Language of MVRDV” at the Tyrolean architecture center “aut. architektur und Tirol” in the Adambräu building in Innsbruck. Following the tour, AIANI took them to the “Café Central” to enjoy some traditional “Sachertorte” and coffee.

AIANI was happy to have these wonderful students here in Innsbruck and wishes them all the best for their future. It would be great to welcome them back soon!

From June 23-24, 2019, representatives of the Israeli Ministry of Education and the non-profit organization Givat Haviva visited the University of Innsbruck. On Sunday night they went to the benefit concert of the Uni-Orchester and enjoyed a wonderful muscial evening.

The following day they visited the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Grillhof Education Center, where Dr. Josefina Echavarría Alvarez and Dr. Noah Taylor gave a very good insight into the institution. The tour and presentation at the Grillhof Education Center was followed by a joint lunch.Later that day they met Rector Tilmann Märk, as well as Prof. Ivo Hajnal, Prof. Dirk Rupnow, Prof. Andreas Oberprantacher, Prof. Ulrike Jessner-Schmid and Dr. Barbara Tasser for interesting discussions.

In May 2019, Prof. Alon Segev from the Loyola University Chicago (USA) visited the University of Innsbruck for the second time. He was invited by Prof. Andreas Oberprantacher from the Department of Philosophy to teach a seminar on the “Philosophy of Religion”.

Prof. Segev taught the seminar “Religionsphilosophie: Universalismus und Partikularismus”, which was aimed to give students an overview of significant religious philosophical and theological positions on universalism and particularism in the context of Christianity and Judaism. In the seminar a special focus was put on the examination of well-known religious-philosophical and theological texts of modernity, written by prominent theologians of various traditions and denominations.

Prof. Segev authored several books including “Thinking and Killing” in 2013 and “Political Readings of Descartes in Continental Thought” in 2019. Moreover, he is also a foremost expert in philosophy of religion and hence, he was able to make an important contribution to the research area “Practical Philosophy” at the University of Innsbruck.Prof. Andreas Oberprantacher from the Department of Philosophy, Prof. Wolfgang Palaver from the Department of Systematic Theology, as well as a good number of interested students, were delighted to have Prof. Alon Segev as a lecturer at the University of Innsbruck.AIANI was happy to help finance his stay here in Innsbruck!

Last week, the second Hackathon of the University of Innsbruck and the Holon Institute of Technology (Israel) took place at the University of Innsbruck. For four days, four interdisciplinary groups of students from Israel and Innsbruck were working together on prototypes, which enable children with and without disabilities to play together. The FabLab Innsbruck supported the students, which came from various backgrounds: computer Science, Industrial Design, Psychology, Educational Science etc.In only four days they were able to create very impressive results: a robot that dances together with the children, an “intelligent” ball with which the children can learn the different colors, a kaleidoscope that only works if two kids use it together and music instruments that allow the kids to conduct their own band.By playing together and observing the kids reaction to the ideas, the students found out what the children liked and what they did not like. They worked hard to improve their innovative, technically advanced projects and were able to present the results and prototypes of the play objects to the children and the public.The second LFUI-HIT Hackathon was a great success and we are looking forward to the next collaboration between the two institutions!The project was generously supported by the “Förderkreis 1669 - Wissenschafft Gesellschaft” of the University of Innsbruck and by HIT.

From May 20 until May 24 2019, two staff members from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Tel Aviv University in Israel came to the University of Innsbruck via the Erasmus+ Staff Training Mobility Program. Both were able to gather valuable and constructive insights into the work of several departments at the University of Innsbruck. Furthermore, they visited the “Schülertag” for High School students and the Business and Social Science campus. Besides their full schedule, they also had time for some sightseeing in Innsbruck.

AIANI was happy to welcome them here in Innsbruck! We hope that they took many good memories back to their home institution.

In May 2019, Prof. Liat Yakhnich, Head of the Department of Youth Development at Beit Berl College in Israel, visited the University of Innsbruck for an “Erasmus+ Staff Teaching” stay. She was invited by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alfred Berger from the Department of Educational Sciences.Prof. Liat Yakhnich is working as a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Criminology at Beit Berl College in Israel. Her research interests include: parenting in cultural transition, immigrant families and youth, cultural identity and substance abuse and addiction. Beyond academic activity, she works with parents and families and is involved in professional training in the fields of cultural sensitive social work and immigrant youth at risk.

During her stay, Prof. Yakhnich gave a guest lecture on “Problems of Adaption of Immigrant Youth in Israel and its Consequences for Social Work”. In her talk, Prof. Yakhnich put focus on problems in adaption of immigrant youth in Israel, specifically substance abuse and delinquency. She presented findings from two qualitative studies and introduced a pilot program aimed at assisting and supporting immigrant families with youth at risk. Although the program is implemented in a particular social context, it offers ideas about assisting immigrant parents regardless of origin, ethnicity, and specific social circumstances. In the first study, Prof. Yakhnich examined the extent to which immigration-related stressors are associated with delinquent behavior of immigrant adolescents from the Former Soviet Union. The second study explored the trajectories of drug abuse and of addiction development among immigrant users.

AIANI and the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Innsbruck were delighted to have Prof. Liat Yakhnich as a guest here in Innsbruck and are looking forward to welcoming her again soon.Prof. Yakhnich’s stay was co-financed by the Erasmus+ Mobility Program.

On Thursday, April 4 2019, Prof. Dr. Ilya A. Altman gave a guest lecture at the University of Innsbruck. The topic of the lecture was “Researching and remembering the Holocaust in contemporary Russia”.

Prof. Altman is a Russian historian and co-founder, as well as co-chairman of the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center in Moscow. Prof. Altman is also teaching at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, which is a partner university of the University of Innsbruck.Furthermore, he is the author of over 300 publications on the history of the Holocaust and the Eastern Front. Many of these have been published in the United States, Israel and Western Europe. Moreover, Ilya Altman is a member of the International Council of the Austrian Service Abroad.

In his talk, Prof. Altman discussed the Holocaust research in Russia in general and how the theme of the Shoah is currently taught in Russian schools. He also talked about the international cooperation in the field of Holocaust research and its future perspectives, taking Austria as an example. Prof. Altman encouraged the audience to visit the exhibition "Holocaust: Extermination, Liberation, Rescue", which is shown at the University of Innsbruck (Bruno-Sander-Haus, Innrain 52f, EG, Innsbruck) from April 6 until May 3, 2019. This travelling exhibition was previously shown in Russia, Argentina, Germany, France, Israel, the Czech Republic, Uruguay and the USA. Recently it was also shown at the United Nations headquarters, the UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and at the Austrian Parliament.

Prof. Altman’s visit to the University of Innsbruck was organized by the Department of History and European Ethnology of the University of Innsbruck, in cooperation with the Department of Contemporary History, the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek of Tyrol, the Russlandzentrum of the University of Innsbruck and AIANI.

In March 2019, close to 45 academics from all over the world attended the international conference about educational, political and cultural aspects of migration, at Beit Berl College in Israel.

As migration is a burning issue all over the world, the conference at Beit Berl was a unique opportunity to learn how various issues related to migration are being handled in different countries. The event was organized by Beit Berl in partnership with Ludwigsburg University of Education in Germany and Pedagogical University of Krakow in Poland. Faculty members from various academic institutions across Europe were attending, including Prof. Dirk Rupnow, Prof. Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger, Dr. Grit Alter, Claudius Ströhle and Laura Volgger from the University of Innsbruck.

Lectures and discussion sessions covered a wide range of pertinent subjects, including “Immigration in the Educational Context,” “Gender and Migration,” “Immigrant Children and Youth,” “Immigration in Art and Film,” and “The Politics of Immigration.” Each issue was addressed by a panel of international experts who brought a variety of interesting perspectives and insights to the table based on their personal involvement and academic research. The participants from the University of Innsbruck reported that they benefitted immensely from the opportunity to compare their research projects and exchange views with colleagues from other countries.The conference participants were also taken to visit Israeli sights and moreover, Israeli NGOs involved with immigrants and refugees, including a school with a special program for integrating the children of newly arrived immigrants.

From March 3-10, 2019 the Tel Aviv Spring School took place in Israel with three students from the University of Innsbruck attending. AIANI supported the participants with a grant. Read the experience report from one of the students here:

The 149th European Study Group with Industry (ESGI) took place from March 4-8, 2019 at the University of Innsbruck. Initiated in Oxford in 1968, the ESGI brings together industrialists, students, postdocs and young academic researchers to work for a week in mathematical modeling and enhance their collaborative and communication skills in a multinational and multidisciplinary environment. During the week, researchers from around Europe work together with industrials on several intriguing problems in order to model and solve them. In this regard, the term “industry” includes Engineering, Material Sciences, Big Data Technology, Biotechnologies, Optimization of industrial processes, Transport, Services, Medicine and any other activity which has an economic or social value.

The objectives pursued for the ESGI in Innsbruck this year were:

Find solutions and bring new insights to challenging industrial problems;

Establish lasting and productive working relations between academia and industry;

Propose new lines of research based on business challenges;

Reinforce the importance of mathematics in industry and mathematical profiles companies stimulate greater awareness of the power of mathematics to provide solve real-world problems.

Prof. Markus Haltmeier and Prof. Alexander Ostermann from the Department of Mathematics of the University of Innsbruck organized the event together with AIANI´s partner institutions in Israel, Holon Institute of Technology and ORT Braude College. The Innsbruck hosts welcomed researchers from around Europe to the Technical Campus of the University of Innsbruck, including their Israeli colleagues and co-organizers Prof. Aviv Gibali from the ORT Braude College and Prof. Refael Barkan from the Holon Institute of Technology. Both came via the Erasmus+ staff mobility program to teach at ESGI and work along colleagues and students in finding solutions to five different problems posed to them by the industry. The stay of the two partners was organized via AIANI. The study week was a great success and the researchers were able to find solutions for most of the projects or at least get closer in solving pressuring problems.